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Key Molecule for Life Found in Habitable Region of the Galaxy

Discussion in 'Science & Technology' started by BuckeyeKing, Nov 29, 2008.

  1. BuckeyeKing

    BuckeyeKing Wolves DYNASTY!!!!

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    Key Molecule for Life Found in Habitable Region of the Galaxy | Wired Science from Wired.com

    Awesome FIND!!!
     
  2. Miamian

    Miamian Senior Member

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    They can see a single molecule 26,000 light years from Earth?
     
  3. BuckeyeKing

    BuckeyeKing Wolves DYNASTY!!!!

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    I believe each Molecule has a distinct wavelength pattern. I could be wrong I'm not really sure.
     
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  4. BuckeyeKing

    BuckeyeKing Wolves DYNASTY!!!!

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  5. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    they ping it so to speak with radio waves, then whatever they get back they know the chemical. Its part of a program they just started doing they go around looking for chemicals that can build life.
     
  6. BuckeyeKing

    BuckeyeKing Wolves DYNASTY!!!!

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    Well I mean how they spot is they used a device which gave out a certain color. When light bounces and hits a molecule it will give out a color, I'm guessing they saw a large amount to determine this.
     
  7. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    Yup. That would be what the wavelength means :tongue2:

    edit: Wasn't trying to correct you just trying to clarify it a bit. They have found other chemicals that are building blocks.
     
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  8. Frumundah Finnatic

    Frumundah Finnatic U Mad Miami?

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    Very intresting find.
     
  9. Miamian

    Miamian Senior Member

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    Wait, they ping it from Earth? This place is 26,000 light years away and if I understand correctly, radio waves travel more slowly than light, so accounting for the trip there and back that's even more than 52,000 years.

    It sounds more likely that they receive naturally-occurring radio waves from space reflected from objects that may have ceased to exist tens of thousands of years ago.
     
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  10. unluckyluciano

    unluckyluciano For My Hero JetsSuck

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    Yes you are correct. My mistake.
     
  11. Miamian

    Miamian Senior Member

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    No problem.
     
  12. BuckeyeKing

    BuckeyeKing Wolves DYNASTY!!!!

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    Not sure what form of Spectroscopy so I don't really know for sure how it was spotted.
     
  13. n9necount

    n9necount New Member

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    Good article. A couple of years ago I attended a lecture by Janice Voss about the Kepler Mission(Kepler Mission).

    Someone in the audience asked about how many earth-like habitable planets they expect to find. She thinks they will find hundreds of thousands of them And that's not even including moons. Europa for instance, has a good chance of having a warm subsurface ocean, which is exactly the type of condition likely to foster some form of aquatic life. Considering Jupiter is right "next door" when you consider the cosmic scale, the further we look the better chance we have of finding ET.

    Actually on a slightly related note a prominent Astrophysics Professor from John Hopkins outlined why he thinks there is a high chance that civilizations exist out there that have had hundreds of millions years of a head start on us and less of a chance that one exists of approximately the same age. So to an outside observer of one of these civilizations we are basically a planet of unintelligent apes. I'll try to find that link later
     
  14. Miamian

    Miamian Senior Member

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    It can go both ways. There may also be plenty of sentient life that's primitive according to our standards.
     
  15. n9necount

    n9necount New Member

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    Oh absolutely. I don't think I was clear with what I meant. Perhaps I should have worded it with intelligent life capable of civilization. I think it's safe to reason that the probability of the most basic and primitive ET life existing out there is non-zero and very close to 1, but not exactly at 1. It gets lower with intelligent life like Dolphins and even lower with intelligent life like homosapiens, and extremely unlikely that this intelligent life visited us, but that's another can of worms.

    Anyway here's the PDF of Professor Henry's article. Check it out if this type of stuff interests you

    http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/babes.in.the.woods.pdf
     
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